


Tolerate It

by EllanaSan



Series: Have a Drink Sweetheart (Hayffie Prompts/one shots collection) [47]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, F/M, Post-Book 3: Mockingjay, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29754831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllanaSan/pseuds/EllanaSan
Summary: Now they shared a house and… And she wondered. Would he have been drinking if she wasn’t there? Would he have been down at the bar in search of company? Would he still be acting as if his demons had been put to rest or was that an act for her sake?She wasn’t sure what she would have liked best.Sometimes, when she watched him read, she felt like a ghost.
Relationships: Haymitch Abernathy/Effie Trinket
Series: Have a Drink Sweetheart (Hayffie Prompts/one shots collection) [47]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/71774
Comments: 18
Kudos: 62





	Tolerate It

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: If you're taking prompts, I would love to read a fic based upon Taylor Swift's song 'tolerate it'. I get such Hayffie vibes from it - Effie thinking that Haymitch doesn't actually love her back, potentially post MJ? Your 'my tears ricochet' song fic ruined me and I love everything you write so know you'd do an amazing job with this song!!

_I sit and watch you reading with your head low_

* * *

There was a quality to the silence in Twelve in the evenings that was hard to define.

Effie hated silence.

She had _always_ hated silence.

It hadn’t gotten better after the weeks spent in isolation in that tiny cell. Silence had been absolute then, only disturbed by the occasional wheezing of her breathing, so thick that even when she screamed, it only seemed to part for only a second before wrapping back around her, _over_ her, like a deadly blanket.

She hated silence.

But in Twelve, late at night, when she was curled up in one of Haymitch’s armchairs, the silence didn’t feel so bad. It wasn’t complete for one thing. There was the loud buzz of the fridge coming from the kitchen, the occasional clicking of pipes, the beams cracking overhead, the popping of the logs in the fire to ward off the early autumn chill… And if she stretched her ears beyond all that, she could hear the soft hooting of owls outside, the sounds of the geese in the pen in the backyard, the distant mewling of cats or… The windows didn’t block sound like they did in the city and she was grateful for it. It meant silence was never oppressing, never threatening…

And in the living-room, late enough that the evening could be considered to have turned into night, there was also the soft breathing of Haymitch, the ruffling sound of a page being turned as he read, the clicking of his mug full of hot tea every time he brought it up to his mouth and placed it back down… The scratching of her own pen on the thick paper as she distractedly sketched dresses in an attempt at pretending she still cared about that sort of things…

Mostly, though, she sketched and she glanced at him and she watched him read. It was better to give him a few minutes before starting watching him because otherwise he would notice, but once he was into his book… His grey eyes darted over the page, his head bent low because he refused to wear the reading glasses she knew he had stashed up somewhere in the house…

She wondered sometimes, if that was how he would normally occupy his time. If he would have been doing the same thing if she hadn’t been there or if he would have been doing something else. He loved to read, that much she knew because even back then, back when they had first met, he had a bad tendency to buy dozens and dozens of books when he was in the city – to last until the next summer – and to leave them everywhere around the penthouse because he had no concept of respect, of how to share a living space with someone else. And now they shared a house and… And she wondered. Would he have been drinking if she wasn’t there? Would he have been down at the bar in search of company? Would he still be acting as if his demons had been put to rest or was that an act for her sake?

She wasn’t sure what she would have liked best.

Sometimes, when she watched him read, she felt like a ghost.

The silence could have been qualified of comfortable because it was easy… But it was also full of things unsaid.

* * *

_I wake and watch you breathing with your eyes closed_

* * *

The nightmare crept on her.

It was the worst kind.

The kind that didn’t make her scream out loud but that stole her breath and from which she woke with a gasp, choking on the lack of oxygen in her lungs, shaking and sticky with cold sweat…

Her eyes darted all over the room in fright. It was light enough to identify the shadows as furniture because the curtains had been left open – she always left them open, darkness was not something she was comfortable with, but leaving a light on all night also felt like a waste Haymitch wouldn’t approve of so she composed with moonlight and the new street light at the corner of the lane… Still, it took her several seconds of anguish to remember where she was. Not her beautiful bedroom in the city, not the shady apartment she had been renting before running out of money and will to try to be on her own, not the penthouse and definitely not her cell…

Haymitch’s guest room.

She was in Haymitch’s guest room.

Where she was living.

She had been living there for two months already.

And yet it still didn’t seem any less stranger.

A snore startled her and she lowered her eyes to find a bare arm haphazardly tossed over her lap. Haymitch was right there, lying on top of the covers, his body angled toward hers…

He had been spooning her, she realized, spooning her over the covers because…

It hadn’t been her first nightmare that night.

She had woken up screaming, sobbing about whips and torn fingernails and… Haymitch had come running, like he did most nights. Then he had dried her tears and held her until she fell back asleep. Usually, he was gone before she woke up again.

She slowly lied back down, her heart still racing in her chest… His arm tightened around her and he mumbled something in his sleep that sounded suspiciously like her name. She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure it meant anything either.

She watched him sleep for a while. He didn’t twitch like he used to do back in the days, the rare times he fell asleep in her bed or consented to share her bedroom after sex. Back then, his sleep was rarely peaceful. His face twitched a lot, his body would tense randomly, he tossed and turned a lot… She was a light sleeper, always had been. He often woke her up. But since it was the only reason he had come to agree to spend the night with her in the first place she hadn’t complained.

Now she had a new appreciation for what he had been going through at the time. She had a new appreciation for his addiction to alcohol.

If she had been able to afford pills or drugs or…

The smell bothered her.

Her own smell.

She reeked of cold sweat.

Strong smells were a trigger and she knew she wouldn’t be able to handle it for long before dashing to the bathroom for a shower. Then, she would insist on changing the sheets because they were dirty too.

Haymitch would wake and he wouldn’t say anything about it because he never said anything about any of it.

He hadn’t said much of anything either when he had told her she could stay with him, after she had showed up soaking wet in the middle of the night with debts and problems. He had showed her to the guest room and the rest, as they said, had been history.

She ignored the smell as long as she could.

She watched him as long as she could.

Then she bolted and he woke up and, while he didn’t say anything, she heard his deep sigh before she closed the door to the bathroom.

* * *

_I sit and watch you, I notice everything you do or don't do_

* * *

She used to prattle to fill the silence, endless chatter, often cheerful, often mindless.

She wished she could still do that but she couldn’t find the strength to act as if she was still that person, that dumb bubbly escort who thought fame and glory would adequately substitute for love…

She tried for the children.

When the children were around, she smiled and she laughed and she forced her face into a gymnastic that hurt more than she could say… Her smiles never reached her eyes, her laugh always sounded fragile and the masks she wore were cracked.

Haymitch saw through all of that in a glance, she knew.

The children it was harder to say.

They accepted she was different, she supposed, because they were all different.

Even Haymitch.

It was in the little things.

She liked watching him cook.

When he was in a good mood, he would cook for the two of them. The smell of food often turned her stomach and she didn’t have much of an appetite, which, she suspected, was exactly _why_ he cooked, to force her into eating at least a little bit because it would have been rude not to.

Haymitch was often in a good mood nowadays.

Sometimes she sat and watched him move around the kitchen, reaching for things without thinking about it, humming under his breath along to the radio she usually turned on as a background noise… He never used to be this carefree. His fingers shook a lot more than they used to too. But, then again, he wasn’t drinking as much as he probably felt the need to. He had cut down and not because his stock was depleting. He had cut down because…

She thought it was because of her.

Because he was scared she would do something stupid.

She didn’t think she was meant to have noticed.

But she saw it.

She saw much more than he gave her credit for.

* * *

_You're so much older and wiser and I_

* * *

Twelve made her feel like an idiot.

In the Capitol, there was technology for everything.

You were tired of the scenery? Tap a button and the windows would show you something else.

You were cold? Type on the keyboard and the house would turn the temperature you wanted it to.

You were hungry? Pick up the phone and call for take-outs.

The laundry? The cleaning? Just pay someone do to it.

Something else you needed but didn’t know how to do? Just pay someone to do it.

In Twelve, it was all about fending for yourself.

The laundry and the cleaning, she had figured out by herself out of necessity. She couldn’t bear _messy_. Sometimes she got back up at two in the morning to mop the floor just so it would smell fresh and clean and _not_ like her cell… The first time Haymitch had mocked her about being _insane_ – if there were no trash bags and no rats, _he_ considered it clean. Then he had figured the smell thing out and he had never said anything about her obsessive cleaning sprees again.

Like everything else she did that seemed to annoy it, he kept his irritation to himself.

But then there were the things he thought were just her quirks, and for those he had no qualm about teasing her.

He and the children seemed to love to joke about how she wasn’t allowed to touch the stove because she had almost lit the kitchen on fire one morning. It wasn’t that she didn’t know _how_ to work a stove, it was that she didn’t know how to work _that_ gas stove that needed to be lit with a match. In the city, stoves were electrical. No match needed. No need to be scared of blowing the place up.

She couldn’t build a fire to save her life either. He had showed her several times, Katniss had spent a whole morning explaining it in detail… She couldn’t do it. Whatever she did, the fireplace never worked out. She hadn’t tried to tell them that in the city, you just turned up the heater and if you wanted a fire for ambiance, you just turned on the TV.

She didn’t do well with _nature_ either. She got scared at bugs, was terrified of the geese that seemed to confuse the kitchen for an extension of their pen, and has sworn off ever venturing in the woods after Katniss had told them about accidentally finding herself face to face with a wild boar one afternoon…

Twelve wasn’t her world, it was difficult and wild and it was full of things she didn’t know how to do but should have been able to master.

And Haymitch navigated it so easily she sometimes wondered how stupid he must have thought her to be.

* * *

_I wait by the door like I'm just a kid_ _  
Use my best colors for your portrait_

* * *

Sometimes Haymitch disappeared.

Sometimes she was so lost in her head she didn’t notice for several days.

He locked himself in his room or in the shed where he kept most of the surplus of alcohol and he went on a binge.

The old Effie, the Effie she used to be, would have taken care of him. She would have chided him and brought him back from the brink before he came to close to poisoning himself. She would have made sure he didn’t choke on his vomit, she would have washed him, she would have…

She couldn’t go near him when he was like that.

_The smell_.

She couldn’t.

It brought her back to her cell. To her own decay. To…

It was Peeta who always ended up doing something about it when it became that bad. The boy never said anything to her, never reproached her for not taking care of the man who had reluctantly offered her a roof when she had had none. If he glanced at her curiously – because he wasn’t entirely unaware that she had played caretaker for him several times during their Games and the Tour – he didn’t pry. For that she was grateful.

When that happened, she sat on the porch for hours, curled up on the old rusty swing seat that she had stopped Haymitch from throwing out when he had offered to declutter the house. She waited for the acrid smell inside to clear. She waited and watched the geese wandering in the yard and didn’t really see them unless one of them wandered too close.

Haymitch only drank that badly when he was really depressed. He had his own triggers, different than hers, more emotional. Once upon a time, she would have tried to drag him out of his dark mood by any means necessary. She would have forced him to see life in colors instead of in black and white. Lately, though, she didn’t have a lot of colors left to spare. Everything was washed out. Sometimes, even if it wasn’t fair, she thought that if she had spent less time trying to make his life less bleak back then, she would still have enough colors to paint her own life back now.

* * *

_Lay the table with the fancy shit_ _  
And watch you tolerate it_

* * *

She insisted on proper meal times when the children were around.

They would have been happy with putting four plates, cutlery and glasses on the kitchen table but Effie would have none of it. She always put a tablecloth, took out the prettier plates, the prettier glasses, the crystal pitcher for the water even if it came from the tap, selected napkins that matched the tablecloth…

The children thought it was funny. They made an effort when she and Haymitch went over to their house for dinner, although it was never quite right. But they thought it was funny.

Haymitch hated it.

He never said anything but he hated it.

* * *

_If it's all in my head tell me now_ _  
Tell me I've got it wrong somehow_

* * *

Sometimes she wondered if she was being paranoid, if she imagined just how much of a burden she was.

She didn’t think so.

Every time she raised the issue of rent or of the debts that had miraculously been taken care of during those first few days she had done nothing but sleep in his guest room, he dismissed it, deflected, told her not to worry about it…

He told her to make herself at home but she didn’t quite dare.

Once she surprised him by changing the curtains in the living-room. It was supposed to be a nice thing. Replace the old brown frayed one with prettier, lighter gauzy white fabric. She had sewn them herself. The only cost had been the fabric, really, and Katniss had negotiated a good price for her.

He had had such a fit about it that she had spent the next two days in her bedroom, torn between anger and sadness.

He had apologized, eventually, told her she could redecorate whatever she wanted in the house if only she would stop crying and eat something, had half- _begged_ her to come out of the room…

It had turned out she had been locked in there for two weeks instead of two days and hadn’t noticed.

Still, though, she hadn’t made the mistake of trying to change anything again.

He said she could stay however long she wanted to but she knew just how private he was, just how much he valued his solitude. He couldn’t have been happy about sharing a house with her. She was acutely aware of that.

* * *

_I know my love should be celebrated_ _  
But you tolerate it_

* * *

There were times, she didn’t think he realized she was still in love with him.

He would do things like lay a hand on her shoulder when they navigated around each other in a tight space, drop a kiss on the top of her head when he got up in the morning and she was already sitting at the kitchen table, hug her tight in the middle of the night when he came to comfort her from a nightmare…

But those things… Those things were so carefully platonic on his side… His hand was always light, his kisses were always chaste, and his hugs were always perfectly friendly… Never once had he tried to take it further. Never once had he looked at her like…

Sometimes she thought she caught a glimpse of lust in his eyes but it was always fleeting and always carefully suppressed and she…

She tried to make him understand his attention wouldn’t be unwelcomed.

She snuggled against his side on the couch, sometimes, when they were both trying to wait sleep out in the evening… She wandered around the house in short nightgowns and light camisoles… She tried to be flirty when she answered his teasing…

She wasn’t sure if she managed any of that because she was always so exhausted…

Or maybe he just wasn’t interested because she simply wasn’t beautiful anymore. Her hair had lost its glossy shine, she was so bony it couldn’t be called slim and there were the scars on her flesh… The ugly reminders.

Peacekeepers liked to taunt her by saying he didn’t love her, that she had been a fool.

Maybe they had been right.

* * *

_I greet you with a battle hero's welcome_

* * *

She knew she wasn’t the woman she used to be.

If he had ever liked her, it had been in spite of everything he had hated her for: how loud she was, how lively, how colorful…

She made an effort.

She made an effort to smile more, to laugh more, to talk more… She made an effort to wear her worn out dresses instead of pilfering his wardrobe for oversized sweaters paired with leggings… She did her hair, did her make-up…

She hugged him more.

He hugged back.

He hugged back and he seemed happy to see her being more like her old self but he still kept himself slightly aloof.

If he got any of her hints that she wanted more than friendship from him, he didn’t let on.

* * *

_I take your indiscretions all in good fun_

* * *

She didn’t find it funny.

The children were having a blast teasing Haymitch about the redhead florist who he apparently _always_ flirted with at the market. The whole meal they had teased Haymitch, sometimes dragging her into the conversation. She would make a comment, drop a gibe about his taste in women, joke about it because it was the only option. What else was she going to do? Scream her heart out?

She didn’t find it funny.

And given the increasingly panicked looks he was throwing her way, he wasn’t finding it funny either.

He lost his temper at some point, which was only to be expected, and the children laughed harder, as if it was all part of the joke.

It predated her arrival, apparently, that fling with the florist.

It explained a lot, perhaps.

“They’ve got it wrong.” he told her later, once they were gone and it was only the two of them and the silence had wandered well away from comfortable to stretch into awkward. “It’s not like that. Never has been. Ain’t interested.”

“None of my business.” she snapped. “Goodnight.”

She managed not to lose track of time enough that she didn’t spend two weeks locked in her bedroom again.

But it was a close thing.

* * *

_I sit and listen, I polish plates until they gleam and glisten_

* * *

It occurred to her, sometimes, that this was exactly the life she had never wanted to have.

She had always refused to become the trophy wife her mother wanted her to be, to become the ornament on a man’s arm, to become the woman who would wait home for her husband all day and whose only value would be her ability to manage the household…

And yet, she mused, one day, as she polished the silverware they never used that she had spread on the big table they never used in the dining-room they also never used, that was exactly what she had become.

Except she wasn’t a wife.

And this wasn’t really her household.

* * *

_You're so much older and wiser and I_

* * *

They didn’t mean to start kissing, she didn’t think.

But, then again, they never had.

One second they had been fighting – about the redhead again, about her insistence that she didn’t care, about how he was tired of her _bullshit_ – the next they had been kissing and he had pushed her against the wall and it was exactly like old times…

Except it wasn’t…

Because it was rough. Not too rough, just the _exact_ side of rough, but Effie figured out quickly rough wasn’t going to be in the cards for a good while.

Rough meant she tensed.

Rough meant she closed her eyes hard and waited for the blows she _knew_ would never come because he would cut his hand off before raising it on her.

Rough meant Haymitch stopped touching her.

Rough meant he realized what they had been about to do.

Rough meant he stepped back.

Rough meant he looked guilty.

Rough meant…

“Sorry.” he said, sounding raw and hoarse and… “ _Shit_ … Sorry. Didn’t mean to… I didn’t want…”

“No excuse necessary.” she cut him off, eager to spare herself the humiliation. “This was a mistake. You regret it. I should…”

_I should leave_ was what she wanted to say. Leave to go _where_ , that was a good question but she supposed she could always try her parents again. There was always a slim chance they had calmed down and would be willing to lend her money if she told them she was homeless… And if not… Well… Maybe it was time for the last living escort to disappear, wasn’t it? The world would only…

“What?” he scoffed, frowning. “ _No_.”

She closed her eyes.

They were doing this the hard way then. “Haymitch, you do not want me anymore. That has been painfully clear to me for some time now and… I appreciate everything you have done for me, I _do_ , but you should know I do not think I will ever be able to only be _friends_ with you and…”

“Wait, wait… Rewind.” he interrupted once more, reaching a hesitant hand for her shoulder. “What’s that _bullshit_ about me not wanting you? Is this about that woman at the marker? Cause I _keep_ telling you, the kids are just being little _shits_ … Maybe I’ve been flirting with her a little, _just_ a little… But that was before you came to Twelve, sweetheart. Haven’t looked at her since. Haven’t looked at anyone since. Come on, you know I ain’t like that. You know I don’t cheat. You know.”

He was almost _begging_ her now and she opened her eyelids again, tilting her head to better study him…

“Haymitch, you have not tried to touch me or kiss me or…” she huffed. “You haven’t even…”

“Was giving you _space_.” he cut her off again, sounding desperate. “Or time, or… Was trying to do the right thing. To let you… _Shit_ , sweetheart, do you think I like having you in the guest room when you should be in my bed? Was just trying to…”

He could be such an idiot.

Such an idiotic _good_ man.

A wiser man than she was, as it turned out, because sex was maybe a bit more than she could handle right then.

Not that it mattered.

They moved her things in his bedroom and she went to sleep in his bed and he didn’t hesitate before kissing her on the lips anymore and that…

That made her hopeful that maybe…

* * *

_I wait by the door like I'm just a kid_ _  
Use my best colors for your portrait_

* * *

Haymitch still went on binges.

She still waited it out on the porch.

She had hoped growing back together would help bring colors back into her life but she spent so much energy trying to reassure him that she was fine that she didn’t have any left to try and be optimistic about their future.

She still had nightmares.

She still lost periods of time.

She still woke up shaking from flashbacks.

She couldn’t stop hearing the echo of Peacekeepers calling her _Abernathy’s bitch_ and making fun of her for entertaining the thought that she had been more than a convenient warm body for him to _fuck_.

* * *

_Lay the table with the fancy shit_ _  
And watch you tolerate it_

* * *

She suggested they repainted some of the rooms.

He was eager to please her, eager to keep her energized and away from the dark moods that made her cower under her blankets for days… So he said yes.

But he hated it.

He hated the sunny yellow she selected for the kitchen.

He hated the earthy tone she chose for the living-room and he particularly hated the feature wall she painted a mossy green just to make the room a little lighter.

He hated the way she rearranged the furniture.

He hated the new curtains.

He hated everything she came up with.

He made some mocking comments but mostly kept it light and fun so she would know he didn’t care.

A lie.

She knew he did care.

He was a creature of habits and it was possible she was just asking too much by turning the house upside down.

But she hated the eggshells he walked on, hated the fact he couldn’t just simply tell her he didn’t like that she was trying to turn his house into their home, hated the fact that she knew he was simply _humoring_ her…

* * *

_If it's all in my head tell me now_ _  
Tell me I've got it wrong somehow_

* * *

“Did you ever think it would end up like this?” she asked him, late one night, as they snuggled on the back porch. The sky was clear and the stars were bright. That was one of the things about Twelve that would never stop to amaze her. She had never seen the stars before. Not really. Too much pollutions and nightlights in the Capitol.

“What?” he asked, dropping a kiss on her shoulder, over the thick jacket he had forced around her shoulders before they had walked out.

Their empty mugs laid abandoned next to the rusty swing seat he kept insisted they got rid of – he had offered to buy her a new one but she liked that one, she wanted to try and save it and she didn’t like the fact they used _his_ money for everything, no matter how many times he said he didn’t care, that he had plenty enough to share. It was late enough that they should consider going to bed and try to sleep.

“You and me… This…” she hummed. “Did you ever think we would end up together in Twelve?”

He snorted. “No.”

She flinched.

He must have realized it wasn’t the right thing to say because his arms tightened around her. “Before the war, it was stupid to even think about it. And after… Didn’t think you’d ever give me the time of day after you’d kicked me out so… Seemed pointless to think about it.” He shrugged. “I’m not much of a dreamer, Effie. You know that.”

She did know that.

But she was.

And no matter how stupid and childish it had been, she had sometimes thought about leaving everything behind, the Capitol, her life, her citizenship, to petition for a move to Twelve… Nobody would have ever let her do it naturally, Haymitch first amongst them.

It had only been a silly daydream.

But it hurt to know she had been the only one having them.

* * *

_I know my love should be celebrated_ _  
But you tolerate it_

* * *

“I love you.”

She had mouthed it against his skin for years before coming to that point, knowing he would panic and flee if she had tried to utter the words out loud. Knowing he would mock her and hurt her and be cruel just because those words were triggers for him the same way bad smells were triggers for her.

But they were curled up together, naked and sated for the first time in two years, the harsh winter wind was roaring against the window, and she felt safe like she hadn’t in a long time.

The words slipped out.

Or maybe she just didn’t care to hold them back any longer.

He didn’t answer her, not that she really expected him to, but he held her closer and pressed a long kiss on her mouth.

It would have to be enough.

* * *

_While you were out building other worlds, where was I?_

* * *

The two year-anniversary of the rebellion was difficult.

It brought a lot of attention none of them wanted.

Haymitch was dragged in front of cameras to spare Katniss and Peeta having to do it.

Effie watched it all on TV, hiding in their house because she didn’t care for the questions, the suppositions, the _attention_ … She couldn’t face them.

She watched him standing in front of Twelve’s new Justice Building on TV, answering questions in that bored tone he always took when he though the host was being stupid, and she thought that she should have been with him. She was his significant other, was she not? Her place should have been at his side. But would he have wanted her there? She doubted so. Even now, they weren’t exactly open about their relationship. They weren’t _hiding_ it like they used to but…

If the children had figured it out, neither of them had come out and said it.

Haymitch hadn’t made _them_ public and he had always been the one adamant that nobody found out so…

She didn’t really belong at his side, she realized. Nobody would have been happy to see her there.

She was the last escort, the one who had escaped the firing squad for undisclosed reasons.

And he was the victor.

He was the victor who had helped lead a rebellion.

He had built a different Panem.

And while he had been doing that…

She had been cowering in filth where most people would probably agree she still belonged.

* * *

_Where's that man who'd throw blankets over my barbed wire?_

* * *

It had been a year since she had showed up on his doorstep.

A year since he had given her a place to stay, a shelter in her storm.

The children surprised her with a big dinner for the occasion. It moved her, she couldn’t hide it. It moved her and it humbled her how readily they had accepted her in their lives.

“So, you’re staying for good, right?” Katniss asked, nonchalantly, biting in an apple.

The question took her by surprise because she hadn’t been expecting it. She had lied in the beginning, about this only being a visit, about all the projects waiting for her in the city… She supposed they weren’t credulous enough to believe her but had humored her not to hurt her feelings.

And now… Well now…

Haymitch was walking around their kitchen, making himself some herbal tea, and seemed apparently unconcerned by the question. As if he didn’t care one way or the other.

He wasn’t even _pretending_ not to care.

She would have known.

He simply… didn’t.

“I… suppose so.” she answered, with barely a hint of hesitation.

She nodded along when Peeta started telling her about the bakery, about how it was finally ready to open and about he would need help… She immediately agreed to work with him. She would feel better if she could earn some money. Contribute.

Haymitch didn’t say one word, not even when he sat back down in the chair next to hers, too busy blowing on his tea to cool it down.

It had been five months since their kiss in the kitchen.

Nobody was aware they were together.

It didn’t seem like the children had figured it out after all.

* * *

_I made you my temple, my mural, my sky_ _  
Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life  
Drawing hearts in the byline_

* * *

Effie had never liked being ignored.

She had craved it for a while, after the rebellion, when the media harassed her and people sent her threats and told her she should be dead but…

She had never liked being ignored by people she cared about.

Haymitch wasn’t ignoring her exactly but he wasn’t really paying her attention to her either.

Her nightmares had eased, the flashbacks happened less and less, she had learned to deal with the panic attacks…

They had slowly but surely found a routine that seemed to work for him.

If she hadn’t known better, she would have called them _domestic_.

She was scared it meant he would get bored.

She used to be that sexy bossy woman and now she was… Now she wiped the counters after breakfast and she sorted their laundry while he looked after his geese and they shared a bathroom and the mystery was simply… _gone_.

He was the only thing she thought about. She _obsessed_ over their relationship, wondering if the ease between them was a good thing or if that just meant the flame was gone, if this was just a convenient thing for him or…

He, on the other hand, didn’t seem to spare their relationship a thought.

* * *

_Always taking up too much space or time_ _  
You assume I'm fine_

* * *

He didn’t have as much time for her as he used to in the beginning.

A part of her knew it was normal, that she had been extremely needy when she had first showed up, that it was a good thing he didn’t need to take care of her as much… But another part was jealous of the fact he was suddenly spending more time with his friends – or people who she assumed to be his friends – helping out with the last of the rebuilding.

She worked herself up sometimes and he always seemed wary at those times, afraid of a panic attack or a relapse or… She didn’t want to turn this into a big deal so she pretended she was fine.

Generally speaking, he seemed to think she was anyway.

* * *

_But what would you do if I_ _  
Break free and leave us in ruins_

* * *

Sometimes she walked to the station and she sat there for hours, watching trains come and go.

There weren’t that many compared to other Districts or the Capitol but there were enough that it would be easy to hop into one. To disappear.

She wondered if he would come after her if she did it. If he would look for her.

She was tempted to do it just to see.

But she couldn’t help remembering that he had left her behind twice.

The odds of him leaving Twelve to chase after her were small.

So she always walked home and lied about having taken a stroll around town.

* * *

_Took this dagger in me and removed it_ _  
Gain the weight of you then lose it_

* * *

Nobody ever told you love hurt.

Or maybe it only hurt when you loved the person more than they loved you.

She was happy Peeta and Katniss seemed to have finally reached an understanding about that, that for how one-sided it used to be, they seemed to have equal feelings now. Equal feelings made it easier, she mused.

She had always been the one who loved more.

Always.

It was a trend with her.

Her family, her previous boyfriends and girlfriends – the ones she had been serious about at least – _Haymitch_ …

She loved more than she was loved and it hurt.

It was like a toothache. It hurt and yet you couldn’t stop probing at it with your tongue and sometimes she mused it would be easier, kinder, to simply remove the tooth altogether.

Haymitch would be angry, confused, maybe he would even miss her a little… But he would survive. And he would move on.

* * *

_Believe me, I could do it_

* * *

Katniss caught her at the station studying train schedules.

She wasn’t entirely sure how she had been able to get away with keeping her trips to the station secret for so long, truth be told, because the District was small and everyone knew everyone. Maybe a part of her had been waiting get caught, had _hoped_ to get caught.

“What are you doing?” Katniss asked, after they had stared at each other for far too long for it not to be awkward. The girl looked suspicious.

“Nothing.” she lied.

The girl picked up her delivery, glanced at the schedules she had been studying, and then waited for her pointedly.

It felt like being escorted home.

* * *

_If it's all in my head tell me now_ _  
Tell me I've got it wrong somehow_

* * *

Haymitch spent the next two weeks watching her without looking like he was watching her, following her everywhere every time she left the house. Sometimes he invented an errand to come with her, sometimes he followed her from afar…

Katniss had told him.

He hadn’t confronted her about it but the girl must have.

Effie supposed it went to show he did care a little, after all.

The sex took a passionate, almost desperate turn with the more days that went by without them addressing the elephant in the room.

Effie couldn’t take it anymore.

She felt like she was suffocating.

* * *

_I know my love should be celebrated_ _  
But you tolerate it_

* * *

“Do you want me to stay?” she asked, point blank one morning.

Why she had chosen breakfast to confront him, she wasn’t sure. He froze, the buttered toast halfway to his open mouth. He dropped it, his other hand clenching around the handle of his mug… “What?”

“Do you want me to stay?” she repeated flatly.

His grey eyes searched hers, wary and sad all at once. “Do you want to go?”

That was so unfair of him to flip the question when she had asked first…

“I want you to want me here.” she snapped. “I want you to _want_ me and not _tolerate_ me like…”

“ _Tolerate_ you?” he spat, cutting her off. “What’s that new _bullshit_ , now, sweetheart? I _tolerate_ you?”

“ _Yes_.” she hissed. “I do a thousand things that annoys you and you tolerate it, tolerate _me_ , because…”

Her sentence trailed off because she wasn’t sure how to finish it.

Whatever anger Haymitch had seemed to muster flickered out as he frowned at her. He was calm when he finished it for her. “Because I _fucking_ l… _lo…”_ He made a strangled frustrated noise and turned his head away, his cheeks flushing red. “Look, you annoy me plenty, true. You’re gonna tell me I’m rainbow and roses all the times? You’re gonna tell me you don’t get annoyed when I toss the wet towel on the floor or… or when I forget to flush the toilets or…”

“It’s different.” she retorted. “This is your house and…”

“ _Our_ house.” he corrected, his tone a little aggressive. “Thought _that_ was behind us.” He shook his head. “I don’t _tolerate_ you, Effie. I’m making _compromises_. Ain’t that what you’re supposed to do when you’re gonna spend the rest of your life with someone?”

The question sounded genuine, as if he was unsure, out of his depths…

It brought her short.

Had she been twisting it in her head all along? Was it just because…

“I am scared you will change your mind and kick me out.” she whispered.

“And I’m scared you’re gonna change your mind and hop on a train for the Capitol.” he replied flatly. “So… What do we do?”

* * *

_I sit and watch you_

* * *

His favorite part of the day was the evenings, when he and Effie would sit somewhere, either on the couch or the porch, with a mug of something hot.

Sometimes they would talk quietly, sometimes he would read and she would sketch ridiculous dresses or watch some random program on TV…

He loved that part of the day best because there was always a point where she would lose herself to what she was doing and he could get away with watching her openly and…

He was so scared sometimes that she just stayed because it was convenient, because she had nowhere else to go, because it was easier to built on the ruins of what they used to share than to go out and look for something new…

He was so scared that she simply tolerated his bullshit, his demons, his flaws, his shortcomings…

But at times like this, when it was just the two of them and he watched her doing something she enjoyed, when she looked so peaceful, almost happy…

He could tell himself it was all in his head, that he had it wrong somehow…

**Author's Note:**

> I was halfway through the one shot when I realized just how easily the song could have also been about Haymitch because they're so NOT GOOD at communication sometimes...
> 
> Anyway, this was a long one! I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know your thoughts!


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